Amritsar

After a very long day of travel, I finally made it to Amritsar about 6pm and immediately headed out to see the famous Golden Temple. The Golden Temple is the holiest shrine in Sikhism. My guidebook rates it as the "most tangibly spiritual place in the country". And it gets more visitors than the Taj Mahal, which is hard to imagine. The temple gets its name from the 100kh of gold that is covering the inverted-lotus dome. All visitors must cover their heads, in my case I was provided with a gold sequined bandana. Pretty flashy for a backpacker. I went on a Sunday so the temple had even more visitors than usual. There were thousands of people. I waited in line almost two hours to enter the actual temple. The grounds and the temple are beautiful, but between the crowds and the heat, and the thousands of pairs of eyes watching my every move...well, it was a bit much. I had wanted to visit the kitchen, where they serve a whopping 35,000 people a day - for free! But, after a couple hours, I decided to skip the communal dinner head back to the hotel and grab a fanta and a candy bar instead.

The next day I went to Jallianwalla Bagh. This is the site, where in 1919, fifty British soldiers, opened fire on an unarmed gathering of Indian men, women, and children, killing 1,526 people. The site is now a park with memorials and a museum. The area was surrounded by a high brick wall, making it impossible to escape. They have the bullet holes taped off. The Sikhs I've met here are really eager to share their history with you. They're all really earnest about making sure that foreigners have the story straight.

Bullet holes at Jallianwalla Bagh

 

After that, I went to a coupe of other temples, and I have to admit I was starting to get a little "templed out." Until, I went to the next one: Mata Mandir which is definitely my favorite temple so far. It's a new temple, built in honor of the bespectacled 20th century female Saint Lal Devi. And it's really different than other temples and kind of odd. Everything is really glittery, and 70's, and there are mirrors everwhere. And the path through the temple goes upstairs, then dowstairs,then upstairs again, then you have to crawl through a tunnel, and then wade through ankle deep water. It was like a funhouse and temple in one. 

Crawling through a tunnel in the temple....

To a very shiny room....

Through a 70's mirror tunnel....

Wading through the water...

And then through a trough of water. At the end, I went over to get blessed by the baba (Hindu holy man) and he motioned me to sit down. So, I sat down with him and a few other people, and we were brought Fanta. I saw for a few minutes and drank my Fanta, and got up to leave and he motioned me to sit down. So, I sat again, and this time they brought out some chopped up fruit, liberally doused in water. I sat and ate my fruit, hoping that water won't come back to haunt my stomach :) All the while, people are coming up to the baba and getting his blessing and bringing him food. After a few more minutes, I got up to leave again....feeling a little guilty for taking up so much of the baba's floor space and time, and again, he motioned me to sit. So, I ended up sitting there for over an hour. And the last course was a delicious lunch. It was such a neat experience, watching him interact with people and seeing how grateful people were to talk to him. He ended up giving me a marigold garland and a red threat necklace, called a mauli. Everyone around me told me that I was very blessed to receive these gifts and not to take off the garland for the whole day. 

My Baba

The temple is in honor of this lady. Women hoping to get pregnant visit this temple.